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Different Class

Jarvis Cocker and the various incarnations of Pulp famously spent years toiling in the shadows before emerging triumphantly into the spotlight in the early-to-mid '90s. I don't exactly recall, but suspect it would have been around the time the 'Lipgloss' single came out that I first became aware of them. I never did buy their His 'n' Hers album, but was good & ready to spend money on Different Class after falling for 'Common People' when it appeared in '95.

I initially bought it on cassette but upgraded a couple of years later to the "Deluxe Edition" on CD, which, as well as the album proper, includes another disc (Second Class) featuring a collection of B-sides released between '93 and '95. So inspired were the band during this period that it's a very strong compilation in its own right, beginning with 'Mile End' which later formed part of the Trainspotting soundtrack, and ending with 'Street Lites' which, for me, is as good as anything on the "main" CD.

On Different Class itself, I'm very fond of 'Pencil Skirt', 'Something Changed', 'Underwear' and 'Bar Italia', not to mention the all-conquering 'Common People' here in its full near-six-minute glory. Less to my taste are the opener 'Mis-Shapes, the overlong melodrama of 'I Spy', the clumsily-titled 'F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E' and 'Monday Morning'. For all my residual affection for the album, it's been a long old while since I last played it.

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